I think that most of us are familiar with the novel by Miguel de Cervantes and his famous book Don Quixote de la Mancha. The essense of the story is that Don Quixote decides to become a brave knight, after reading many stories about them, and goes off in search of adventure and to right some  injustice in the world in the name of his beloved Dulcinea. During the course of the story, he jousts with windmills believing them to be evil giants. The idiom “tilting at windmills” is believed to have come from this story and is understood to mean “to confront and engage in conflict with an imagined opponent or threat.

“I also blame pedophilia and virtually every other sexual dysfunction squarely on Christianity in the West.”

I totally fail to see any sort of link here. The Christian belief that you should wait till marriage somehow forces adults to fondle and have sex with underage children. Fred’s idea to some how cure or stop pedophiles is “Simply, remove most religious sex taboos. That way, if Johny gets improperly touched at school, he won't be riddled with guilt and shame, but instead, come home and tell his parents that his teacher touched him on his penis. “ I fail to see how this is a solution of any type although I suppose if we remove the taboo and wait long enough it will no longer be illegal Is it somehow the child’s fault that an adult did this? Who blames their children when this happens? Children are brought up to trust certain adults, teachers being in that class of trusted adults. Of course Fred also goes on to state “being touched might not be as bad as we consider it now.” This is just another flabbergasting statement and one wonders if this is the course of action he’ll take if were to happen to his kid. I wonder if Fred has ever made this statement to his neighbors even the non-Christian ones.

“Of course being a priest is not now, nor has it ever been, any guarantee of celibacy. When you try to go counter to the basis of human nature, bad things happen.”

Hey, guess what, I just received my draft notice from the local parish, I’m being drafted to the priest hood. What illogical argument is this? First of all, people volunteer to the priest hood. During the course of becoming a priest, you are required to attend school for 4 years. There is also the fact that remaining celibate is a known requirement in order to remain a priest and is not something that is suddenly sprung on them at the last moment. As they are volunteers (I.E you are not forced to become a priest) they are also free to leave the priest hood at any time.  If we take all of these known facts into consideration, we are left with one inescapable conclusion. If you don’t like the job requirements or don’t feel you can meet the job requirements, then don’t take the job. Whose fault is it? I know the reasoning behind the belief that priests are to be celibate and I don’t happen to agree with it. Fred does attempt to defend his position with “I can take a pledge to forgo food or bowel movements too, lol.” Other then there is the very slight difference being that with one of those choices you can live a long and full life and not so with the other.

“I also blame Christianity for the negative aspects of the gay-subculture in the West.”

So, removing one of the variables, I asked him to explain that being Gay in the old Soviet empire (not a Christian nation) was a sure sentence to prison or execution, state sponsored of course.  I don’t know about gay culture in china but best guess is that it’s probably not well thought of there either.  

Fred claimed “Russia isn't in the West.” Which, while technically is true, actually answer’s nothing. Fred does like to allude that the Soviet Union form of government is almost like a religion so that’s close enough for him as with this statement “Some governments push their own ideology down their citizen's throats as if it was a religion.”

So, anything that resembles a religion in any way is bad? Then again, I believe that Fred would love to see Christianity removed as any influence in government and humanism as the influencing agent. So, if our government adopted humanism and said that this philosophy is how people are to live, wouldn’t it then be pushing an ideology, albeit a different one? The only difference being, Fred agrees with this one.

To continue with Fred’s general attack on everything wrong with civilization and how it applies to Christianity, That is, pushing gays into the closet where they seek each other out and get exposed to shady activities such as promiscuity, drug use, etc.

So, what Fred is saying here it that gay’s, driven underground, seek other gays who then expose them to promiscuous behavior and drugs and this is Christianity’s fault. First of all, isn’t promiscuity a personal choice? As human beings aren’t we supposed to be able to override instinctual behavior not that being promiscuous would be considered instinctive.

Second of all although I’m sure that there are exceptions, no one forces someone to take illegal drugs. It’s a personal choice to indulge or to not indulge. Yes, the decision can be difficult if you are being pressured by your friends. In my younger days, I had friends that smoked pot and was offered it many times and even pressured on occasion.  I made the decision to say no as I knew it was ultimately my decision.  Then there is subculture which actually starts in high school which I’m sure that everyone remembers that different groups tended to hang out together.  In today’s modern age, every culture has a subculture contained with in it. Does anyone think that the United States is one big culture or it would be if you removed Christianity?

Once again I fail to see the correlation between drug abuse , promiscuity and how Christians are to blame for it all  although I am starting to see the gist of Fred’s overall argumentation. It basically states “I’m not responsible for my actions.”  Also known as don’t blame me syndrome that is so popular in today’s culture. Also, I suppose that Christianity is ultimately to blame for the drug subculture in today society.

I did accuse Fred of irrational hatred toward Christianity which probably wasn’t the best choice of words as everyone has some sort of justification for what they believe.

“It's not an irrational hatred, it's a fact based response.” is the explanation that I received which raises the question, where have we heard this excuse before? I’m sure that the defense will be that Christians are prejudiced against other religions. I can’t speak for all Christians but I will say that I don’t believe that Hinduism, Buddhism, Confusism, Taoism, or any other “ism” for that matter are correct. So, if you want to accuse me of prejudiced against a belief system, ok fine, but I accept or reject the individual on his merits and not what he/she claims.

So, for now, I’ll leave Fred as he goes trotting off on his skinny horse looking for yet another evil giant to slay for his beloved humanism. Perhaps someday he’ll find a trusty Sancho.

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